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ARGUTvIKNT 



FRED H. WILLIAMS, 



BEFOKE THE 



LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE ON TOWNS, 



Feb. 27, 1889, 



IN FAVOR OF THE INCORPORATION 



THE TOWN OF BEVERLY FARMS. 



BOSTON : 

DANIEL GUNN & COMPANY, PRS. 

31 Hawley Street, 

1889. 



Compliments of 



FRED H. W1LLIIIM8, 



ARGLIMENT 



FRED H. WILLIAMS, 



BEFORE THE 



LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE ON TOWNS, 



Feb, 27, 1889, 



IN FAVOR OF THE INCORPORATION OF 



THE TOWN OF BEVERLY FARMS. 



BOSTON : 

DANIEL GUNN & COMPANY, PRS. 

31 Hawley Street, 

1889. 



ca 



CLOSING ARGUMENT FOR THE PETITIONERS. 



By FRED H. WILLIAMS, Esq. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: 

I am aware, of course, that I cannot give you a speech of as high a 
standard of oratory as that to which you have just listened; you all know 
I cannot, and I know it as well as anybody in this room. I simply hope 
you will have patience with mo while I proceed to state the facts and 
reasons that prompt us to petition here for an act of incorporation. I 
will begin by simply asking you to recall the proposition that is before you. 
About ninety-five one hundredths of the entire people, numbering about 
twelve hundred , residing on a tract of territory covering a little over 
three thousand acres, petition to be incorporated as a separate town. 
There are two hundred and seventy polls, two hundred and twenty regis- 
tered voters, of whom all but fifteen reside upon the territory con- 
tinuously, and these fifteen from six to eight months per year, made up 
of men engaged in all the ordinary walks of life, and competent to 
manage town affairs. Their property is valued at from $4,000,000 to 
§6,500,000, according to the place of residence of the one making the 
valuation; large enough, in either event, to yield a revenue sufficient to 
meet all ordinary town expenses. Of three hundred and twenty-eight 
towns now in the Commonwealth, if Beverly Farms should be incorpo- 
rated, one hundred and twenty-one will have a smaller population, 
ninety-one would have a smaller number of polls, and we would have a 
larger valuation than a majority of towns. These people have their 
own stores, post-offices, raili-oad stations, social organizations. Grand 
Army Post, paying its own expenses and not supported by the town, 
an Independent Order of Good Templars, and a branch library, all the 
mechanics necessary to supply their needs, and except in the manage- 
ment of town affairs, they have no interest in common with the muni- 
cipal and business centre of the town. They are four miles distant from 
the business centre of the town, which contains a population of eight 
thousand people, a valuation of 87,000,000, sixteen hundred dwelling- 
houses, shoe manufactories, and other manufacturing establishments, a 
water-supply, banks, horse cars, and every feature of a thriving town. 
I wiU not dwell upon that fact because you yourselves have been there 



and know it. We are four miles distant, as I say ; it is commonly spoken 
of as four miles and a half, notwithstanding what the governor has been 
pleased to say is a misstatement. We have to go that distance to attend 
to any town business. Our High School children have to travel that 
distance and return, in order to attend the High School, We have to go 
there to pay our taxes and water rates, to attend political caucuses or 
town meetings, and, if public officers, to attend a meeting of the 
Board; or, if we have business before a Board, to transact such 
business; if we want a license — or, in fact, have any town business — 
we have to travel that distance. And that is an inconvenience. 
No matter if they do it in other places, it is an inconvenience; 
or at least we so consider it; and it is an inconvenience that 
involves loss of time and expense, whether one travels by rail or by car- 
riage ; and in attending town meetings, especially in the evening, we 
generally have to go by carriage. Now, it is on that statement of facts, 
without discussing the details at this moment, that we believe our going 
away would work no injury to the old town, it having sufficient wealth, 
people, territory, and capable men to administer its affairs in our absence 
without difficulty or financial loss. We claim we are entitled to have 
our petition granted, as a matter of right. If I have made a correct 
statement of the condition of affairs in Beverly and Beverly Farms — 
and I have endeavored to make it so — and if the policy of Massachusetts 
in reference to the incorporation of new towns heretofore considered by 
all students and statesmen as wise, is to be adhered to, then we are en- 
titled to have our petition granted without another word. 

Just a word as to the policy of Massachusetts in reference to new 
towns. From the earliest times the policy of Massachusetts has been to 
establish one-village townships and town governments, and these 
political units are the basis of our whole political system. Every foreign 
student who has investigated our institutions, and all our American 
statesmen have recognized the one-village township as the greatest and 
most important of our institutions, for here the people are the source of 
power. De Tocqueville spoke of New England as the birthplace of 
American institutions, because here was developed the township with its 
local self-government. Thomas Jefferson, seventy years ago, longed to 
see the township system adopted in Virginia, and said : — 

" Those wards called townships in New England are the vital principle 
of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention 
ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-govern- 
ment, and for its preservation. As Cato concluded every speech with 
the words Carthago est delenda, so do I every opinion with the injunc- 
tion. Divide your counties into wards." 



Were he alive today he would doubtless urge, Divide your towns just 
as soon as they are too large for economical management and con- 
venience of all the people. 

Robert Rantoul, the distinguished statesmen of Essex County, and a 
citizen of Beverly himself, says : — 

"The great discussion on town division in the Constitutional Conven- 
tion of 1853 settled the fact that convenience should be considered the 
requisite for division." 

Mr. Bryce, to whom the governor has referred, in his recent work on 
the American Commonwealth says : — 

" The towns are to this day the true unit of political life in New Eng- 
land, the solid foundation of that well-compacted structure of self- 
government which European philosophers have admired, and the new 
states of the West sought to reproduce." 

lie, however, comments upon the difficulties where the numbers 
become too large for debate and for thorough and calm discussion in 
town meeting and the management of town affairs. A study of the 
history of Massachusetts must convince even a prejudiced mind that the 
creation of one-village towns where municipal affairs can be easily, 
economically and conveniently performed, has been a principle of its 
legislation from the time of the Pilgrims even. Chief Justice Gray, in 
Hill V. City of Boston, 122 Mass., 344, says: — 

" In Massachusetts, towns were not incorporated till A. D. 1785 ; 
prior to that date they consisted of clusters of inhabitants dwelling near 
each other, which, by the effect of legislative acts designating them by 
name and conferring upon them the powers of managing their own 
prudential affairs, became in effect municipal or quasi corporations 
without any formal act of incorporation." 

Thus the legislative body of the Commonwealth has been constantly 
called upon from the earliest times to define the limits of towns, change 
and confirm their boundaries ; and today there is scarcely a town in the 
Commonwealth which has not been divided, or had its boundaries 
changed by the creation of a new town, at some time in its history. 
Thus, gentlemen of the Committee, you see you are dealing with no new 
problem. 

This principle and practice as to division is set forth tersely by the 
late Hon. R. S; Spofford, as Chairman of the Committee on Towns, in his 
report upon the incorporation of the town of Belmont, made to the 



Legislature of 1859. It may have been read to you, but, even at the 
chance of repeating it, I will take the opportunity of reading from it: 

" As respects the creation of new towns, the rule of practice as well as 
of right has come to be that, whenever the elements of a town are shown 
to exist, — that is to say, a sufficient area, population, wealth and 
capability to manage municipal affairs — and further shown that it is the 
unquestionable wish of the people living upon the territory to be 
incorporated as such, that then, if no injury shall accrue to any other 
town or interest, the Legislature, under such circumstances, will, in the 
exercise of its power in this regard, be guided by the will of the people, 
and grant their request. Nay, the doctrine is still more liberal, to this 
extent, namely, that when, upon the premises suggested, the good to be 
accomplished by incorporation is considerable to the one party, that is, to 
the petitioners, and the ill to be suffered by the other party, the 
I'emonstrants, is comparatively inconsiderable — when, in a word, the 
advantage shall counterbalance the disadvantage, taking into the account? 
of course, all possible relations, public and local merely — that then 
legislation shall be in behalf of the petitioners. This is, and has been, 
the doctrine of Massachusetts — a wise doctrine, and, indeed, the only 
doctrine consonant with the theory of our institutions." 

If ever a case came within the provisions of that doctrine, Beverly 
Farms is such a case, and the petitioners are entitled to receive an act 
as prayed for. Without further discussion, I claim that we have shown 
a case that comes within the principles of that doctrine. I shall, 
however, call your attention to a few of the many other facts which have 
appeared in testimony, and which makes the granting of our petition 
desirable, and, in fact, a necessity. 

First, I will allude in a brief way to the High School. The objections 
have appeared in testimony of distance of travel, leaving home early in 
the morning and returning at night ; cold dinners, waiting at stations or 
in the streets, physical dangers and moral objections to railroad travel ; 
and in the past it has been made uncomfortable for children from the 
Farms, although we have introduced no testimony to that effect this 
present year. While undoubtedly travel over this distance is unavoidable 
and is necessary in many cases, yet, if it can be avoided and children 
educated at home under the care of the parents, it is certainly desirable 
and an end to be attained. Without further discussion, I will read an 
extract, taken from the Boston Transcript, from an address delivered 
before the Horticultural Society of Boston, two years ago, by Miss Sarah 
J. Smith, who states the objections to children riding upon the cars to and 
from the city of Boston and the other places where they are obliged to go. 

"Notice, when on an early-morning railway train going into any of 
our Northern cities, the number of girls and boys carried to attend the 



large public schools. Day after day they go, perhaps for four years, 
wasting hours of that time in depots, or lounging in places far from 
home or school, when the trains are not conveniently arranged to suit 
school hours : making friends where they ought not, joking with railroad 
officials and chance acquaintances. At first, simple, truthful, honest 
girls, who see no harm in it, knowing nothing, fearing nothing, but 
growing freer, bolder, day by day. Here and there are girls not hurt by 
it, — faithful, modest girls, who may be trusted to the world's end. It is 
not for these we fear, but for the sake of the others we should question. 
Towards what does all this tend ? Is it justice to put a girl through such 
temptations, and then expect her to be other than she too often 
becomes ?" 

The anxiety of the fathers and mothers of the boys and girls of 
Beverly Farms that their children may not be subjected to similar 
temptations, prompts them to wish for an opportunity to educate their 
children at home. I do not claim that other children are not obliged to 
travel four miles to attend school, but I do claim that if the objection can 
be avoided it is certainly desirable. 

As two hundred is to eight hundred, so is the influence of Beverly 
Farms to the rest of the town of Beverly in town affairs. The evidence 
is clear that, until this division movement was inaugurated, we were at 
the complete mercy of the old town ; while since we are treated with a 
liberality which is not only astonishing but demoralizing in its effect. A 
petition has only to be circulated at the Farms and forwarded to the old 
town, and it is granted without a man appearing in its favor at town 
meeting. But we are suspicious of the Greeks of the old town of 
Beverly when bearing gifts ; for every grant we receive our valuation is 
increased more than two-fold. We started our petition because we could 
not obtain what we wanted, and the few favors since granted have not 
affected our memory as to the past nor given us faith as to the future. 
We long for the opportunity to raise our own money and expend it in 
our own midst, with a due appreciation as to our wants and needs. 

The inconvenience of attending town meetings, — often nine or ten in 
a year, and frequently in the evening, — together with the treatment we 
received, led to a very small attendance before the division movement 
started, and the evidence at the early hearings shows that "they felt it 
was no use going." Kow, in addition, much feeling has grown out of 
the division movement, and there is no attendance from the Farms. 
This Committee has heard the testimony of two witnesses. Pierce and 
Loring, who declare they will never go to town meeting as long as they 
are in Beverly, and we could have produced nearly two hundred who feel 
the same way. 

You have heard the testimony as to our treatment by the political 



8 

committees, — not even receiving a notice of a caucus to choose delegates 
to a State convention in a presidential year, and the only divisionist sent 
to a Republican convention was to one where the nomination was 
conceded before the convention was ever called, and we are powerless to 
help ourselves. Our newspapers and orators rave over the treatment of 
the blacks of the South, and of the peasantry of Ireland; yet, within 
twenty-five miles of Boston dwell two hundred voters who have no voice 
even in the nomination of candidates who shall represent them, and are 
compelled to submit to the humiliation of being misrepresented by a man 
who has twice appeared as counsel in this same case; and the only 
difference being that while he was before the junior he is now the power 
behind the throne, — the senior, the grand rajah, who asks all the 
questions through the eloquent lips of a distinguished ex-governor of this 
Commonwealth. [Applause.] 

I received a Portland paper the other day from a Maine senator, — who 
sits on the Committee on Towns of the State Legislature, — sent to me, 
I suppose, because he knew I was interested in town division matters. 
There was the question of the division of Boothbay before the Legislature. 
I read the report through, and my attention was attracted to the fact that 
when it came to a vote the gentleman representing that town rose in his 
place and asked that he might be excused from voting by reason of 
personal interest. And it occurred to me that if similar action could be 
taken by the representatives and senators in our own State, the petitioners 
of Beverly Farms might have some chance of securing what they ask 
for. [Applause.] 

The pains taken by the other side to show that the Farms people have a 
constable — a member of the Board of Health, field-driver, and so forth — 
is laughable in the extreme. What have they to say about representative? 
We have not had one, with a single exception, in thirty years, and that was 
in the year 1875, when the old town also had one. What have they to 
say about assessor and selectman, — officers that should amount to 
something and be somebody in a community raising $100,000 in taxes; 
but with us they amount to nothing; they do not represent the people of 
the community, and have not any support in their own community. It is 
true that we have not had a Trustee of the Public Library, nor a member 
of the Board of Sinking Fund Commissioners, although it must be 
conceded we have men able and competent to fill such positions in our 
midst. There has been a Board of Trade established in Beverly, but no 
member from the Farms and no notice was ever sent to the Farms of 
the purpose of forming any such Board. Either we are regarded by old 
Beverly as a separate community, or they utterly disregard us, as we 
claim; they may take either horn of the dilemma they please. I shall 



not repeat the testimony as to the caucus in 1880 at the Farms. It is 
before you and it is in print. We tried to nominate meu whom we 
wanted, — men ab-'^ve reproach, — and if ever we were insulted, that was 
the time. At the town meeting our nominees were bowled out and a 
renegade divisionist rewarded for his treason by being elected Selectman; 
and a poor old man, broken down and decrepit, — who never owned a 
foot of land, — made Assessor, he is moulded by the assessors from the old 
town as they please, and delegated to take the census at Centreville, 
while a Beverly assessor takes that of Beverly Farms. Mr. Hinckley, a 
member of the School Committee and a witness for the old town, in 1886 
told us the first year what we might expect, when he said: " It has been 
generally talked as if those who had been instrumental in this matter were 
up for otflce, they would not be voted for, that is all." [P. 122, 1886.] 
And that is the fact. How nearly he was right, the result has proved. 

In such a contest as this, and with the evidence of the character we 
have had, you would expect the selectman and assessor from our end of 
the town would be here to justify their work. But, no. Old Beverly 
does not dare to have them shown up. For such treatment, we complain. 
We don't like it; we are aggrieved, and we appeal to you for relief. Old 
Beverlyites may come whining around about the way they like us, but 
while we believe they are not speaking the truth, we will take it for what 
it is worth, admit we hate them, and ask you to let us elect the men we 
want. 

The natural result of all this non-attendance upon town-meeting, 
non-participation in political work, and not holding any town offices of 
any importance, follows, namely: Our young people are growing up, 
and our old ones are living without any of that experience and training 
which we regard as a valuable part of a man's education, which we all 
know to be beneficial to the man, and often through him, to the 
community. There is no interest manifested in public affairs, and, as 
some one said, " our people are dying of political dry rot, as it were." 
This is a matter of serious moment and consideration to many interested 
in the welfare and prosperity of the community, and with a town of their 
own, they hope for improvement. 

The extravagance which has characterized the management of town 
affairs, and over which we are unable to exercise any control, notwith- 
standing we contribute many thousands in excess of the amount 
expended in our district, last year amounting to about 5^35,000, is a source of 
aggravation as well as of increased burdens. Numerous instances have 
been cited in testimony during the various hearings. I shall only call 
your attention to the enormous debt the town is struggling under, 
contracted principally since 1870 — the largest of any town in the State, 



10 

the large annual appropriation, S200,000, only exceeded by Brookline, 
and larger than in the cities of Waltham, Woburn, and Quincy. Other 
towns of the same or larger population and territory do not expend 
within S50,000 to S75,000 as much. The town is too large and has too 
much business for economical and prudent management, and, as at 
present governed, it passes the line of good government into that of 
willful and reckless waste. This is not the empty charge of a mere 
divisionist, but finds a ready and responsive "Amen" in the bosom of 
many an anti-divisionist ; and I call your attention, Mr. Chairman, on 
that matter, to the editorial read by Mr. Loring, from the Beverly Times, 
issued just before the annual town meeting last spring: 

" LET THE PUBLIC KNOW. 

Town politics are considerably discussed, and a good deal of pipe- 
laying is quietly going on. The Times this year is a disinterested 
witness, as it has no axe to grind or no friends to reward. It is a rare 
year that does not see the "old Board," or a part of them, running for 
re-election, and the opposition in former years embraced so many 
different factions that the race was a foregone conclusion. 

Another thing that has helped keep the "old Board" in office has 
been this division fight, which has hung over the town for the past three 
years, and the people have seemed to feel that " It was not safe to trade 
horses while crossing the stream." Things have changed during the 
past few years, and we have risen from the quiet country town and its 
revered village officials, whose thoroughgoing way of transacting the 
town's business was as honest and open as their faces, and today we 
nearly assume the dignity of a city in fact, if not in name, and wire- 
pulling, promises, bossism and other political shenanaging are used to 
elect men to office. 

So much for the election to office, and now a word about her business. 
The affairs of a town the size of Beverly are so important that men 
cannot attend to them in a careless and half-interested way, and unless 
there is system in her government, a goodly share of the $200,000 
annually appropriated will not yield the return the taxpayer expects 
w^hen he makes the appropriation. A matter that concerns the people 
is a lack of open-handed confidence with them by our officials. When 
there is an extra large expenditure in one ward and a smaller one in 
another, a part of the large expenditure is charged to the ward of the 
lesser, and while none of the money is perhaps misappropriated, yet the 
people are deceived just the same. There should be no star chamber 
business about our town affairs ; the meetings of the different boards 
should be open and free to the public press, that our citizens may know 
just how affairs are being conducted, and how our money is being 
expended. 

It is true, with the annual town meeting comes a report in print, — a 
report that is as clear as mud to the average citizen, who has no 
knowledge during the year of what was going on, and he takes it home, 



11 

spends a few eveuings looking it over, but nine tiinos out of ten finds no 
satisfaction in it." 

Just a word as to the Pride's Crossing Post-office. In 18S7 a voting 
precinct was established at the Farms upon lines which prepared the 
way for the suggestion subsequently made for a divisioo of the town. 
That line leaves in the old town several voters whose business, social 
and postal relations and conveniences connect them with the Beverly 
Farms people and the Pride's Crossing railroad station and post-office. 
To make it appear that this precinct line was the line of division, the aid 
of the United States government was invoked to discontinue the office 
and establish a carrier system which accommodated nobody. In place of 
five mails per diem each way in summer and two in winter, they had 
one each way, arriving and departing at the same time, and that a vary- 
ing one, according to the weather and the amount of mail to be delivered. 
According to the Beverly post-master's own admission, special delivery 
service was discontinued, and if rendered it was only a courtesy. The 
remonstrance was numerous and unanimous, but the Beverly papers 
were pleased to term it another plot of the division schemers, openly 
and boastingly proclaimed the discontinuance a victory for old Beverly, 
and urged political support for the man whom they claim accomplished 
it. The indirect attacks upon the character of the postmaster, and the 
charge that the office was not paying, I shall not dwell upon further than to 
call your attention to his own evidence as to remitting to the government 
$100 per annum, after paying all expenses, and also to the fact that the 
office has been re-established at the old stand and with the same post- 
master. But the spirit which would prompt such interest on the part of 
Beverly people to deprive our people of postal facilities, and in return 
give us absolute inconvenience where they would not have a cent's worth 
of financial interest, excites our indignation and prompts us to call your 
attention to the conditions which surround our living and very being. 

The first year (1886), as the governor said, and as I stated in the open- 
ing, we did not rest our case on grievances. The difference between the 
governor's statement and mine is that I say we did not rest our case 
upon grievances ; we did not, however, admit that we had no grievances. 
We came here and claimed that our petition should be granted as a 
matter of right, and the Committee took the same view. On the cross- 
examination of the witnesses it appeared the people felt they had inade- 
quate protection against fire, and an insufficient number of street-lights; 
that the car fares of school children to Beverly were a burden ; that they 
did not have proper facilities for using the public library; and there was 
universal complaint on account of bad roads. While the town by wit- 
nesses and arguments of counsel controverted and denied our position, 



12 

nevertheless at the next town meeting it acknowledged the justice of our 
comfilaint by giving us an engine-house, additional street-lights, by paying 
the fares of the children attending High School, and by giving us a box 
for a branch of the public library ; while they also bought a stone-crusher 
at the old town, it has never yet been seen at Beverly Farms. Thus, with 
a burst of generosity they stretched forth the right hand, while with the 
left they knocked the breath out of our bodies by raising our valuation 
S2,656,78o, of which ^1,723,810 was on real estate — or an increase of 72^ 
per cent ; and this by a board of assessors, who. Brother Moulton says, 
had taken a new oath. But one of them, Mr. Murney, has told you he 
didn't know whether he took a new or an old oath. You get at the 
records and you will find they took the new oath some six months later ; 
and when they assessed this property they were not bothering about 
oaths, new or old. They were after blood, and they got it. [Applause]. 
They found six hundred acres in the whole town that had been untaxed, 
of which twenty-six were in the Farms and 574 in the old town ; and yet 
with their new oath, five hundred and seventy-four acres of new property, 
and twenty-eight new buildings, the total increase of valuation in old 
Beverly across the proposed division line, on both real and personal 
estate, was only S214,4-i0, as against S2,656,785 on the Beverly Farms 
side. 

It was our misfortune to be tied up another year with old Beverly, and 
receive another token of their love and esteem in the shape of an in- 
crease in valuation of S(356,990, making a total increase in two years of 
S3,313,773, or 82^ per cent., against $339,900 in the old town, or 5^ per 
cent.; and there w,is about $400,000 worth of new buildings erected in 
old Beverly in those two years. This increase did not fall upon the rich 
alone. As you have seen, the laborer on the road who owned a small 
piece of land beside that of a rich man whose fancy led him to pay an 
enormous price for a rock, had his land raised to the same rate. The 
poor widow and the rich banker were smitten by the same unerring blow 
The testimony of 1887 shows repeated instances, varying from 25 to 800 
per cent, of increase on the village property owned by Beverly Farms 
people ; and the assessor's valuation book is one vast compilation of 
examples and illustrations of the statement I make. 

Now, we have several things to say in reference to this increase. We 
say them here, and we think several things we do not say. First, we say 
and believe that this wholesale plundering, prompted by a devilish 
malignity, was done deliberately, designedly, and systematically, with a 
view to increasing the proportion of the debt we should take if divided ; 
and if unsuccessful in our efforts, to punish us for our audacity in even 
attempting division. To substantiate the statement we point to the 



13 

silent figures: Two years increase at Beverly Farms, $3,313,773; and at 
Beverly, 8339,900. In one year there was an increase on real estate 
alone at Beverly Farms of SI, 723 ,810 ; and on both real and personal 
estate at Beverly, S213,440 ; or, an increase on real estate of 72 per cent, 
in one year. 

Again, we invite your attention to the testimony of Mr. Dow and Mr. 
Ober in reference to the conversation with Capt. Odell, who was Chairman 
of the Board of Assessors, to the effect that he accepted the position with 
the understanding that the valuation of the Farms was to be raised so 
that we should take a larger proportion of the debt. Although Capt. 
Odell denied it last year, we have heard nothing this year. And we 
further call your attention to the testimony of Mr. Miles Sampson, of 
Pembroke, a member of the Committee on Towns in 188G, whom the 
governor has seen fit to laugh at, but who came up here not for the 
purpose of testifying that it was Capt. Odell who told him the old town 
only wanted the Farms one year more, as they hadn't been half taxed, 
but simply for the purpose of testifying that it was Mr. Norwood; and 
the only way you can connect Capt. Odell with it is the fact that I 
inadvertently called Mr. Norwood "Mr. Odell"; it was my error. 
Whether he knew the right man, you can judge; I think he did. 

Now, then, I say this raise in tlie valuation was done for a malicious 
purpose, and I would like to call your attention and that of Brother 
Moulton to the third section of the act of 1885, providing for the oath of 
assessors, which I think the gentleman on the other side left out. 
Brother Moulton read the first and second sections of the act, and I 
wondered why in the world he didn't read the third, which says — (Chap. 
355, Acts of 1885, sec. 3): 

" Every assessor of any city or town who shall knowingly fix the 
valuation of any such property at a higher sum than its full and fair cash 
value, for the purpose of evading or aiding in the evasion of any law 
which at the time such valuation is made is in force limiting municipal 
indebtedness, or the rate of taxation, to a percentage of valuation, or for 
any other fraudulent, corrupt or malicious purpose, shall be punished by 
a fine not exceeding SI, 000, or by imprisonment not exceeding six 
months, or by both such fine and imprisonment." 

Was it possible that Brother Moulton was thinking that Capt. Odell 
had laid himself liable under that section for maliciously increasing the 
valuation ? [Applause.] 

Second, we claim and believe that the testimony is conclusive that the 
property on our side of the line is not valued upon the same basis as that 
on the old Beverly side ; that the assessors have discriminated against us 
in favor of those residing on the town side. You have had instances 



14 

cited to you in the evidence of Mr. Stephen J. Connolly and Mr. Loring; 
the books introduced furnish others, and I shall not weary you with 
others further than to call your attention to the Pickman Beach, where 
we alighted, you remember, from the barge, and walked down to the 
shore; take the land all along on Pickman's Beach, and on the average 
it is valued at .$2,000 less than that on Cotting's Beach, just the other 
side of the creek, a little way from or opposite Cotting's barn; again, to 
the fact that Mr. Haven's back land was valued in 1885 by the assessors 
at $1,250 per acre, in 1886 at $4,352, and in 1888 at $6,500 per acre, or an 
increase of $5,250 per acre in three years. Mr. Pickman's back land in 
lfc85 was valued at $1,050 per acre, in 1886 at $1,500 per acre, and in 
1888 at $1,750 per acre, or a rise of only $700 per acre. Whether or not 
these are proper comparisons, I leave you to judge; we think they are. 
Again, let me call your attention to store property. You find Mr. 
Woodbury at the Cove, having a grocery store there — you remember it 
was called to your attention — assessed in 1885 and 1886 for $1,000, and 
not raised till this year, when he is increased $200; while Mr. Marshall, 
at the Farms, but a short distance from the place where we took our 
dinner, with only one-quarter as much land, is raised from $1,400 in 
1885 to $3,000 in 1886, and now reduced to $2,700. And so I might go 
on, but will refer you to the evidence, and for examples of discrimination 
in village property recall your attention to Mr. Connolly's list, introduced 
in testimony: 



15 



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16 

Showing seven pieces of land at the Farms as compared with seven 
pieces of land in old Beverly occupied for similar purposes, and as 
nearly as possible existing under similar conditions, and the result shows 
that before the division movement at the Farms the land on an average 
was assessed ^ oi a cent per foot higher at the Farms than in the old 
town, and after the raise in 1886 increased 1-12 of a cent per foot in 
Beverly and 3f cents per foot in Beverly Farms. 

That there is a discrimination, take the well-known and generally 
recognized fact that the value of land is largely governed by the value of 
buildings upon it, and we find in Beverly an average valuation of ^^486 
of buildings to the acre, and in Beverly Farms of S438, or about $50 
more to the acre in Beverly than in Beverly Farms ; and yet land at 
Beverly Farms is taxed on the average at $1,222 per acre, and at 
Beverly S370 per acre; with $50 less buildings, or one-tenth per acre, the 
land is valued at over three times as much, contrary to all experience, 
practice, and calculation as to value. As another illustration I will call your 
attention to Mr. Haven's testimony wherein he says that all the land 
assessed on Cabot street, reaching from the Salem bridge to the "Wenham 
line, comprising over 550 acres, and increased in value by buildings 
valued at .$470, together with the land on Rantoul street, comprising 25|- 
acres, and with buildings on the same valued at $150,000, constituting as 
they do nearly all the business portion of old Beverly, and lined with 
business blocks, bank buildings, churches, and so forth, that all the land 
on these two streets was assessed for a less sum than a single estate — 
that of Mr. Haven's — of about 100 acres at the Farms, with buildings 
valued at $20,000. Without further comment, I simply state the fact. 

It must be clear to you that the assessors discriminate in favor of the 
old town, in that they do not apply the same scrutiny in discovering 
property that they do on the Farms. I don't care to discuss this point 
any further than to call your attention to the testimony of Mr. Murney, 
whom I believe to be perfectly honest before this Committee and works 
with the best intention, but has been in bad company on that board of 
assessors of old Beverly. 

I simply call your attention to his testimony relating to the assessors 
investigations as to trusts. You saw and heard him. And while they 
had time to investigate Mr. Loring and others at the Farms, they had no 
time for Mr. Pickman and others in town, notwithstanding the time was 
extended two months, from September 15 to December 15. Mr. Murney 
and others of the Board knew that last year we pointed out property in the 
old town to the amount of $4,175,000 which was untaxed, and called the 
names of the parties who held it. By the most vigilant search and 
plenty of time, they introduced testimony to the effect that we were in 



17 

error as to .$580,000, leaving S3,595,000 unexplained; and of this, 
Sl,500,000 was in the hands Mr. Pickman. Tliere was testimony 
to that effect in this room. Why didn't they proceed to find out what he 
had after the testimony of last year? Everybody knows that Mr. Pickman 
has more than S289,000 worth of taxable personal pi-operty, that in fact 
he is sveral times a millionaire ; and everybody shuts one eye and laughs 
when the assessors pretend he is taxed for what he is worth. Mark my 
words, the assessors will not find time to investigate his trusts this year; 
and those other trusts will go the same way, while the Farms are raked 
with a fine-tooth comb. The fact is the assessors' time failed them at the 
usual point, — the assessors' or division line. Just a word as to Mr. Lor- 
ing. I think I am justified in saying that, in the community where ho 
lives, he is universally loved and respected by all the people. That, as a 
lawyer at the bar he has attained distinction early in life; that he is 
recognized as a man of probity and good character, as well as of intelli- 
gence; that in both old Beverly and in Beverly Farms, he is recog- 
nized as a truthful man; and we have to go out into the western part of 
the state to find a man who will reflect in any respect upon him; and I 
believe his testimony as to his trusts here speaks for itself, and needs no 
defence from me. [Applause.] 

Finally, gentlemen, the valuation imposed upon the Farms property is 
excessive. You have viewed the premises and had your attention called 
to some of the property. You saw George Larcom's house and land, 
valued at S3,000 per acre, the place where the barge was hauled up, and 
your attention called to the property just before we crossed the railroad. 
You saw Dea. Haskell's little lot, — a perfect paradise for a goat, — now 
valued at $2,200, raised from $750 to $3,300 in the time of the great 
raise, and you have heard his testimony as to what he would sell it for. 
Of course, he is not coming up here to say that he will sell it for a small 
sum, but he has told you that he will sell it for the assessed valuation 
and for less. These are only examples of a hundred other instances, — 
I use the word "hundred" advisedly, and not hundreds, — just about 
one hundred other instances of the same kind in Beverly Farms among 
the village owners upon which no one but a Beverly assessor can gaze 
without pronouncing them outrageous. You heard Mr. Haven testify 
that he would sell his lot opposite D. W. Hardy's, back in the village, for 
$5,000, which is valued at $8,100, and could neither get that figure nor an 
offer at any price. Of the shore property, it is in evidence that there is 
much land for sale, — the Kidder estate, the King place, Eugene Thayer's, 
and other estates. Mr. Lothrop has advertised his place at the assessors' 
valuation. Mr, Haven has advertised and is now advertising his hill 
property for less than one-half the assessors' valuation, and there are no 



18 

sales and no prospective purchasers. You heard the testimony of Mr. 
Meredith, a real estate broker familiar with this entire shore property, a 
fair and honest witness, I submit; and I urge your careful consideration of 
his entire testimony. He tells you that real estate is at a standstill in 
Beverly Farms, and that he can effect no sale. And finally, the only 
auction sales, the best test of the real value of property, made during the 
past year, show a higher valuation by the assessors than they will bring 
in the market. I refer to the land belonging to the Bisson estate, at the 
Farms, assessed for .$420 per acre, which brought S220; while lots belong- 
ing to the same estate and sold the same day on the Beverly side, brought, 
one $4,505, assessed for .$2,875; and another brought .$215, assessd for $75, 
or 100 per cent, below the assessment in Beverly Farms, and 200 per 
cent, above in Beverly. Counsel intimated on cross-examination, that 
it was four-fifths of an estate. It makes no difference, the proportion 
remains the same, as the same interest was sold on each side. Here was 
a bona fide sale, and a proper suggestion for your consideration. 
"Whether Henry Peabody's land in Beverly was sold or not, I don't 
know; certain it is it was put up, and if bid in, it was done so at much 
higher figures than assessed. And while these sales also illustrate the 
fact of discrimination, the sale at the Farms, the only one we have here 
as a real test, shows an excess in valuation; and that is the point I am 
now urging upon your consideration. 

Only a few more words upon this subject. The law requires the 
assessment of property at its full and fair cash value; that is, at the full 
price which anyone would pay for it in cash, ready money down, not the 
credit principle, not the instalment principle. The property must there- 
fore be valued at a salable, and a marketable price within a reasonable 
time. And if the property cannot be sold within a reasonable time at 
the valuation, it is clear that this is too high. 

Applying this to all the lands at Beverly Farms, it is clear that they are 
too high, and much too high. The exceptional sales at fancy prices of a 
few scattered acres, over eight or ten years, do uot*help us much, because 
the quantity of land really in the market today, if not absolutely advertised, 
is much more than all that it has taken five years to sell. It is a panic, 
if you please; but if so, it is a panic caused largely, if not entirely, by the 
assessors and their over-valuations. It is a state of things due pretty 
much entirely, if not wholly, to the Beverly assessors and the Beverly 
people. Outside of the village property above referred to, the greater 
part of the land at the Farms is valuable only for two purposes, — farm- 
ing or woodland, and for country homes. For the first purpose it is not 
worth fifty dollars an acre. It is worthless. Its value for the second 
purpose depends wholly on whether people want it for that use; on the 



19 

taste, the fancy, the fashion, if you please, of people as to their country 
homes; for in most cases, if not always, these country homes are 
matters of taste, of fancy, of pleasure, or of fashion. Now in this point 
of view it is indisputable that today, and for the last two years, all land 
at Beverly Farms is absolutely valueless. JS"obody has come there, 
nobody will come there. Not a foot of land has been sold to any new 
comer for any such use. You can neither sell the King place, almost 
at the extreme west on the division line, nor at Mr. Haven's on the 
east. So much for the shore property. Mr. Connolly's comparisons 
show over-valuations are not confined to shore lands, as do the Bisson 
sales. 

Just a word as to appeals to the County Commissioners. One man tried 
that ; no other man cares to. Let me quote from the Salem Gazette, in 
an issue just after the decision in the Haven appeal, rendered, if I re- 
member, the day before the vote was to be taken in the Senate: " There 
are not many people who will not suspect that the Commissioners desired 
to stand well with old Beverly as a political power." He who runs can 
understand. Verily, it were easier for a sawmill to pass through the eye 
of a needle than for a Beverly Farms man to get his valuation reduced 
by the County Commissioners of Essex County, with old Beverly oppos- 
ing him. Without further comment I will leave it there. [Applause.] 
Our opponents attempt to justify the assessments by laying before you 
cartloads of figures, comparing prices paid for land in old Beverly forty 
years ago, — perhaps it would be more accurate to say before the land 
was developed for shore resident purposes, — comparing prices paid then 
with the amount assessed in 1888, and then arguing that the assessment 
is in Beverly higher than the price paid, and also claim that the amount 
paid by a man in a moment of lunacy for a barren hill covered with rocks 
warrants the placing of the same value upon all the surrounding land in 
Beverly Farms. But the testimony, notwithstanding this maze of figures, 
is undeniable and conclusive that there are no sales at Beverly Farms, that 
there is no market for land, and two lots cannot be sold at one-half their 
valuation. Moreover, it appears that there is, practically, no building at 
the Farms, that houses usually occupied are vacant, and those kept for 
purposes of renting now rent at a greatly reduced price. The population 
is consequently diminishing, laboring men are idle, times are hard. 
There is a blight upon the place, and as this division agitation and the 
high valuation of the Beverly assessors evidently in part bring about this 
state of affairs, inasmuch as new people will not move into a communiiy 
where a row is going on, and where they are at the mercy of the tax- 
gatherer in an unsympathizing and despotic end of the town, our people, 
who have the interest of this place really at heart, feel that the success 



20 

of this movement is essential for the future growth and prosperity of the 
place. They have, as the governor says, built a shoe shop in hope of 
helping the place. But when the governor calls your attention to Peter 
E. Clark of Beverly as being the treasurer, I want to call your attention 
to the fact that he believes in the division of the town, and he is only one 
among many more like him, [Applause.] He is a Beverly Farms man 
by birth, and he is only one of many in old Beverly who, when we get 
at the real state of their feelings, think that division would be a good 
thing for both places. 

It must be apparent to you that the feeling that exists between these 
communities is not of that character which conduces to a peaceful and 
harmonious living together. I know the governor has seen fit, in cross- 
examination and argument to make light of this matter. While the 
little pieces of testimony introduced taken separately may lead one to 
think this feeling will soon be overcome, yet those who know its work- 
ings and look upon the matter seriously, feel that it is of that character 
that it can never be allayed while the two communities are bound to- 
gether ; and even if separated it will not cease at once. One witness, 
you will remember, thought it would take another generation to see it 
pass away. It comes from the methods resorted to by the old town to 
defeat us, the things said at the hearings and in the public prints, the 
offensive exhibitions of exultation over our defeats, the misrepresenta- 
tions constantly made as to the petitioners, the personal insults suffered 
by individuals, tlic treatment accorded us at town meetings, their abso- 
lute exclusion of us from participation in political affairs, the utter dis- 
regard of our wishes so far as town officers are concerned, the willing- 
ness to sacrifice even our postal facilities in their anti-division moves, 
the plundering we have to submit to in valuation and taxation, and the 
thousand-and-one little things which, like drops of water, collectively 
make a mighty stream, have so aroused the feelings of the Farms people, 
that we publicly admit we don't like our rulers at the old town ; we 
hate them for what they have done and are doing, and we want to get 
away from them. And when they come up here headed by Mr. Know- 
it- All Grant, of six months residence in Beverly, and say they love us 
and have no feeling, we know they either lie or don't know what they 
are talking about. Our people don't like to have a man like Mr. Know- 
it-All Grant, whose position naturally would entitle his testimony to 
weight, come up here, after having got himself invited to deliver a lecture 
by starting his price at ^25, and then dropping down to a collection, and 
misstate facts as to their church. As he apparently does not know anj'^ 
more about the feeling he testifies to than he does as to the church at 
the Farms, they prefer you to consider the testimony of Deacon Has- 



21 

kell, a life-long resident, and the letter of Eev. Mr. Reding, who has 
known the people there for 40 years and preached there 18 years, to that 
of a six months' sojourner who testifies to events to which he was a 
stranger. You remember the character of Cy Prime in the play of Josh 
Whitcomb, who says, " If old Bill Jones was alive I could prove it." 
Unfortunately the fellow is dead who could prove the fact as to that pe- 
tition to Rev. Mr. Morgan, asking him not to allow the minister from the 
Farms in his pulpit ; so we are in the same condition as Cy Prime. But 
when upon investigation you find a refusal on the part of all the people 
in one village to purchase goods of any tradesmen residing in the other, 
an unwillingness on the part of the school children to attend school in 
the town, by reason of the treatment they receive from their mates; and 
of the workingraen to work in the shops at the other end of the town ; 
when after the most careful perusal of the Beverly newspapers, one is 
unable to find a single reference to the people of the Farms as even 
inhabitants of the same town ; but, however, does find every issue almost 
tilled with columns of abuse, invective, and insulting epithets applied to 
them ; when'the mere appearance of a citizen of the Farms in the sti-eets 
of the town is an invitation almost always accepted for the application 
of such endearing terms as " boodler," and "briber," from their breth- 
ren of the old town ; when church people meet with no welcome from 
their brethren in the old town, and the minister of the Farms' parish is 
so misrepresented as to be made to feel by his associates that he has 
espoused an unholy cause in speaking for the rights of his down-trodden 
people ; when, in fact, respectable people are stoned and burned in effigy; 
and when, finally, the two communities cannot even unite in paying res- 
pect to their Union dead on Decoration Day, and the members of the 
G. A. R. Post in Beverly never visit their comrades at the Farms; — then 
indeed, may not all hesitate before refusing to supply the only remedy 
which apparently can ever heal the breach ; which, paradoxical as it may 
sound, is separation ? 

Now, in the first place, I undertake to say that, in consideration of our 
material circumstances, our location, and the conditions under which we 
live, we are entitled to our petition as a matter of right ; to grant it 
would be consistent with the policy of Massachusetts, and in accordance 
with the constitution under which we live. In the second place, I under- 
take to say that these reasons which we have since enumerated, showing 
the way in which we are treated and compelled to live are suflicient, if 
others did not exist ; and when the two are united they make the 
strongest case imaginable, as strong as any ever presented to a Massa- 
chusetts legislature. 

Now, what objections are offered to our going away? They allude to 



22 

the population, and say it is not so large. We produce Stephen J. 
Connolly, a man who lives on the place, who knows everybody, who 
brings in his book, and on it he has the names of the people, their streets, 
their residences; and I don't know how you can get anything more. He 
makes the population 1,145 in Beverly Farms and 57 in that portion of 
Wenham which is proposed to be taken in, and he offers himself for 
cross-examination. You cannot get anything stronger, and as against it, 
measuring the population by an average of polls and school children, 
vanishes into thin air. Mr. Murney, on the contrary, admits there are 
some errors in his figures, and Mr. Connolly, on an examination taking 
only half an hour, found 28 people who are not accounted for by Mr. 
Murney residing on his own street; and he found two houses on his own 
street where they did not have the people living up stairs. Now, I agree 
with the governor that it don't make any difference whether there are 
850, 1,000 or 1,200 people in the town; but I argue that we have a 
sufficient number of people to establish a first-class town; and on the 
testimony before you I claim that we are entitled to the belief that the 
population as presented by us is correct. 

Just a word more as to the High School children. We hear now for 
the first time that they are not up to the high standard of scholarship of 
the children on the Beverly side. It is sufficient to say that this is 
something new, something we have never heard before. We have always 
heard that they were first-class children, had a first-class teacher, and a 
first-class school; but since Miss Ober had the hardihood to come up 
here and testify in, favor of her own friends and associates at the Farms, 
now you hear that the children are not up to the standard. Last year 
our children did not go because of the treatment they received. They 
were called boodlers and made to understand that they were divisionists; 
now, when they muster themselves ten strong this year, and show Old 
Beverly what they may expect in years to come, why, they shift their 
sails and say the scholars are not up to grade. I don't care to argue that, 
it is only a make-shift; and so long as our scholars annually carry off the 
honors, and His Excellency the governor sees fit to read the essays or 
poems which are written by our scholars, we are perfectly willing to stand 
by the facts as they appear. [Applause.] 

Now, as to the debt incurred. They say this large debt of the town 
was incurred for our benefit, and instance the water supply. The fact 
that there is a water supply in any seaside or country town seems to have 
no connection Avith its being chosen by persons for a summer residence. 
Water was introduced at Beverly Farms in 1870. Since tliat time Ihere 
have been about fifty houses built for summer occupation between the 
proposed division line and the town of Mauchcslur, But iu Manchester 



23 

itself, where there is no water, there have been built as many houses and 
two hotels besides. Xor can this growth in Manchester be explained by 
the low tax rate there ; for in Magnolia and those parts of Gloucester 
where there is not only no water supply but a tax rate of S19 a thousand, 
the number of houses built for summer residents has been quite as large, 
and the average character and cost of the houses quite as high; while, 
besides these private houses, numerous boarding-houses and half a dozen 
or more hotels have been put up and are occupied every summer. At 
Magnolia alone, within a radius of half a mile, there have been built in 
ten years thirty-eight houses for summer occupation, besides three large 
and several small hotels, and this with no water supply there and very 
high taxes. In fact, while we cannot say that the introduction of water 
at Beverly Farms has retarded its development, we can see that the 
development there has been considerably less than that of any other point 
on the north shore, or of many places on the south shore, of our bay, and 
in the interior of Massachusetts. 

We appreciate the benefit of the excellent water we have in common 
with the rest of the town, and are not only willing, but expect and wish, 
to assume our full share of obligations contracted in consequence of its 
introduction; but we do not propose to be held responsible before your 
eyes for the whole debt of the town and its water legislation without 
calling your attention to the facts as they appear in testimony. Water 
was introduced under an act of 1869, and according to the remonstrants' 
own witnesses, Mr. Baker and Mr. Haskell, in the testimony of 1886 and 
1887, " the selectmen were given entire discretion to put it all over the 
town at the start." Those are Mr. Baker's own words. And Mr. 
Haskell says (p. 47, 1887): "Water was not put into the Farms by a 
vote of the town, but was put in by the selectmen under a general vote, 
as I understand it." Mr. Baker again says, in 1887: "We" — Mr. 
Baker was then a selectman — "thought the urgency at the Farms 
required it, and so we did it." And then the town voted in 1870 to 
authorize the selectmen to put it into North Beverly, Centreville and 
Ryall's Side. There is not a particle of evidence that a permanent or 
temporary resident ever urged the selectmen to carry water to the 
Farms. Although he speaks of pressure from the shore people and people 
on the hills, he does not name one, unless he considered himself one, 
as he considered the urgency sufficient to run pipes through half a mile 
of rock-cutting in his avenue, although there was not a solitary house or 
water-taker to be supplied for sixteen years. 

Coming to the independent supply, the evidence is conclusive that it 
was adopted as a wise investment by the whole town and meant a saving 
of money to the town over the then existing system of buying from Salem. 



24 

The testimony of Messrs. Baker, Lothrop, Morse, and Loring, shows 
that was the motive, and subsequent resuhs have showed the wisdom of 
the move. In the Selectmen's Report for 1884 we find the following: 
"The water contract with Salem expires Dec. 31, 1884, and it would be 
well to early consider what measures had better be taken as to the future 
water supply of the town, with reference to head, supply, and 
cost." The failure of Salem to supply Beverly with a sufficient head 
of water for use in case of fire, as well as for the high lands in different 
parts of the town, doubtless had something to do with the determina- 
tion, on the part of Beverly, to have independent water-works. But for 
years before this decision was arrived at, Beverly had been complaining 
of the great amount paid Salem for water ; there had been continual ill 
feeling and litigation upon this question between the two places, and it 
had been uniformly claimed by the advocates of an independent system, 
that under such a system water could be supplied more satisfactorily and 
with great saving to the town. Much stress has been laid upon the fact 
that residents at the Farms had signed petitions to the Legislature in 
favor of an independent water supply, and taken other steps in the 
same direction. But it was substantially admitted in 1887 by the " lead- 
ing citizen of Beverly," that everything which had been done had been 
either directly or indirectly inspired by him (1887, p. 175.). 

It is true that letters were written as read by the governor in testi- 
mony. Those letters were instigated by Mr. Baker and obtained by Mr. 
Loring at Mr. Baker's request. The fact is that these summer people 
allowed themselves to be made cat's-paws for the introduction of an in- 
dependent water supply in Beverly. And while contending that the 
purpose of supplying the high lands at the Farms was one of the con- 
trolling motives inducing the town to put in their own water- works, Mr. 
Baker admitted, somewhat reluctantly it must be confessed, that he had, 
in the town meeting called to decide upon this question, given them 
estimates of cost, by which they would be an apparent advantage over 
what the Salem people asked. And it appeared from the testimony of 
other gentlemen who were present at this town meeting that Mr. Baker 
stated that the town's water-works would " be a great financial saving 
to the town; actual income instead of outgo" (1886, Morse, p. 107); 
and also that Mr. Baker further stated, in the committee appointed to 
consider the question, that Beverly would reap an income from the 
water; that the town was likely to have money coming into the treasury 
from an independent water supply, and that he gave figures to that pur- 
port. [Ibid. p. 169.] It also appeared that the only person living up- 
on the high lands who was a member of this committee strongly objected 
and protested against any outlay being made for the benefit of the 
Farms as a separate locality. [Ibid. p. 169.] [See also Lothrop, pp. 175, 



25 

176.] And when later the pending litigation between Beverly and 
Salem as to the amount to be paid for the use of water was at last 
decided, the editor of the leading Beverly paper wrote: " It has been a 
good thing for our water- works, as the few who formerly objected to the 
town entering into such a costly project now see the wisdom of the step 
and are anxiously looking forward to the day when the town shall be 
able to cut loose from Salem's supply and use its own water at much 
less expense to the people." [Citizen, July 31, 188G.] 

The town's committee in making its report said that after they had 
examined the estimates and dates presented, a unanimous expression of 
opinion was had that it would be good policy for the town to establish for 
itself an independent water supply. [See p. 234 Petitioners' Testimony, 
1887.] 

John I. Baker signed this report as Chairman of the Committee, and 
the town clerk records that the votes were adopted by a nearly unanimous 
vote in the meeting, at which there was a large attendance, many more 
than two-thirds of the voters present voting therefor. 

So far as the whole matter has any possible connection with the 
question of division, the purpose for which it is brought forward by the 
town would seem to be this: ITirst, water was put into the Farms on 
account of the pressure of the people there ; second, in consequence of 
water having been introduced there, the rest of the town insisted on it 
and got it ; third, the cost of carrying water to the Farms was about 
^■200,000, that, of course, they should pay the whole of ; fourth, the 
Farms is really responsible, as above shown, for the water being carried 
to Ryall's Side, Xorth Beverly, and Centre ville, and should therefore pay 
for tliat ; fifth, this covers the whole cost of the watei'-works before the 
independent supply, that is ^455 ,000, less the original expense of 
putting the water into the centre of the town, $58,000. (Baker, 1886, p. 
140.) Therefore, the Farms, on division, should take of the original 
water debt $455,000, less $58,000, or $393,000. And, to continue the 
argument, the independent water supply was at the Farms' instance and 
wholly for the Farms' benefit. (1886, p. 143 and p. 131.) Then the 
Farms, on division, should pay the whole cost of that, say $180,000 ; and 
$393,000 plus $180,000, equals $573,000. Admit the soundness of the 
argument, then, certainly if we pay the bills we should have the property. 
If we leave the town the property, we certainly ought not to pay all the 
bills, we are ready and willing to pay our full proportion. 

Outside of our proportion of the water debt ($200,000), the share of the 
town debt incurred for the benefit of the Farms is less than three per cent, 
of the whole. Go to Beverly and you can find the balance in public build- 
ings ($100,000), school houses ($150,000, the Buscoe alone cost $80,000), 
highways and bridges ($206,000), public grounds ($10,000), cemeteries 



26 

($17,000), fire apparatus (S10,000), and " other debts " which like charity 
and a rich wife cover a multitude of sins ($46,000). 

]^ow coming to the town line, they tell us the line is unfair and we are 
taking too much of the shore. When this petition was started the aim 
and desire was to include the people of Beverly Farms so called and the 
district known as the Farms. During the first two years not an 
intimation even was made that we included anything but what had 
always been recognized as the Farms. The Cove district extended to 
Chapman's Corner, Mr, Hinckley testified, and Mr. Baker said Beverly 
Farms stopped at Witch Lane, which is practically a continuation of 
Prince street, the street we drove down when we went to Mr. Powell 
Mason's, only on the other side of Hale street. You will remember 
Chapman's Corner is just a little one side of the creek, our proposed 
division line, and Prince street a little the other side. Until 1886, when 
the town, for valuation purposes was divided into districts, the Farms 
district extended to a point close by Prince street. The Committee for 
fixing the division line, made up of three permanent residents of the 
Farms, chose one just between Chapman's Corner and Thissel's brook, 
about half way between Beverly and Beverly Farms ; by all odds the most 
practicable. Neither Prince street nor Chapman's Corner was practicable, 
with a line in the middle or one side of the street ; that must appear to 
any one. You have seen the line and you know the conditions. You 
know there is a ravine there and a brook running up a mile or more and 
then passing off towards Wenham through an uninhabited and uninhab- 
itable territory, and as we claim, it is the most practicable line that could 
be drawn. Again, on either side of this brook residents get their mail, 
take the cars and have their business and personal relations with the 
Farms and the old town respectively. To grant the line the remonstrants 
suggest would be to adopt an arbitrary and absurd line, which divides 
estates and really separates a part of the Farms from itself ; a line which 
no petitioner wants, which has nothing to commend it except that the 
remonstrants suggest it, and would leave in the old town people who 
have stood shoulder to shoulder with us in this long struggle, who partici- 
pate in our feeling about division, have endured the odium which has 
been cast upon us by the old town, and who do not wish to be left for 
further pillaging by Beverly. On this gore there are ten voters who 
petition, there are three Essex County women, property holders, women 
interested in Essex County, five men who have large money interests in 
Essex County, and they are among the petitioners and not afraid of the 
County suffering from the success of this movement ; and Mr. William 
Dexter, who has been referred to, while owning no land in Beverly 
Farms, nevertheless does own land on Hospital Point, or Burgess Point, 
in old Beverly, and he by signing our petition is not afraid of any injury 



27 

which will come to the old town by division. The Legislature is not in 
the habit of granting to a body of petitioners what they do not ask for, and 
if we do not make out a case on the line we petition for, give us nothing. 
We do not propose to desert our friends and fellow-sufferers at this late 
hour. The line we ask for was made by nature, universally recognized 
as the boundary between the two sections, adopted by the petitioners, 
ratified by three Committees on Towns, and confirmed by the assessors 
of Beverly. After the view of last week, I do not propose to argue the 
question of our taking the most desirable part of the shore. You know 
that we leave in the old town a beautiful shore, well adapted for and 
already dotted with handsome residences, almost the same in number as 
in the Farms; more than thirty have been built in Beverly during the 
past three years, and none in Beverly Farms, and we have nothing at 
the Farms which can surpass the view one gets from Lothrop street, in 
the vicinity of the new hotel already erected as a rival to the Masconomo 
at Manchester. Furthermore, it has appeared in evidence that we 
neither deprive them or the town of any rights in our shore beaches; 
their rights are the same as ever. And on this point I refer you to Mr. 
Pierce's testimony and report to town by a committee in 1884, which 
says: " Your committee have been unable to obtain any evidence that 
the town in its corporate capacity has any rights in the beaches." 

Now, then, as to this summer resident movement. What are the facts? 
You have had introduced before you the copy of an old petition taken 
from the Manchester records as indicating what the feeling was in 1717: 

"At A Town meeting in Manchester Legally warned And met 
togather one the 13 Day of June 1719. 

" Firstly. Cap John Knolton was C[h]osen moderrator. 

"21y. John Escot was c[h]osen to serve on the Juri of tryalls. 

" .31y. Beniamin Allen is Chosen to serve on the Juri of tryalls. 

" 41y. It is voted to chues A man to send to the General Co[u]rt with 
the men of the farm of Captain West of Beverly with a petition in order 
to get them of[f] from beverly. 

" 51y. Cap John Knolton is Chosen to go with such jantel men of 
Captain Wests farm as they shall A pint to go to the Jenneral Co[u]rt 
with A petetion for thare getting of [f] from beverly to us At Manchester 
And All so to Kays our formmer petetion of he thinks it best." 

You have had the testimony of old men now living who told of hearing 
their fathers talk this matter over and discuss it in the shoe shops when 
they were boys; you have had referred to you a copy of the petition 
presented in 1869, which is as follows: 

" To the Honorable the Senate and House of Fepresentatives of Ifassa- 
chusetts, in General Court assembled : 
"The undersigned, inhabitants, residents and owners of property in 
Beverly, respectfully pray that the part of Beverly lying east of a line 



28 

beginning at the creek on Patch's Beach, and thence running northerly 
to Chapman's Corner, and thence northerly to Weuham, may be set off 
from Beverly and made a separate town. 
"September, 1869." 

The only difference was that this line practically began at Chapman's 
Corner and went more nearly straight across the town than our line does. 
Between 1875 and 1880 " Division of the Town " was the subject of 
public debates in Beverly Farms and Beverly. In 1881 there was a 
meeting at the engine house and a committee appointed to consider and 
report. There was talk about filing a petition before the Legislature of 
1885, but it was found too late to do so under the rule as to advertis- 
ing, etc. All this took place and nothing was said about summer residents ; 
nothing was thought about them; it was before the summer resident 
had blossomed out, or even lived on the shore. Then follows the rising 
of the people in the fall of 1885, — their public meetings, their organiza- 
tion of committees,— a movement in which the entire population joined, 
and in which, despite discouragements, disappointments, trials and 
troubles, they are still united. The Beverly Citizen of October 10, 1885, 
says : 

" Beverly Farms was alive with enthusiasm for separation last Thurs- 
day evening. It all seemed one way — in favor of a division of the 
town." 

Examine each year's petition, converse with the people and investigate 
the whole proceedings, and the most skeptical, if he gives an honest 
opinion, must admit that this movement originated with the permanent 
residents of Beverly Farms. They have planned their campaigns, done 
the work, and are deserving of the rewards of victory. Our friends on 
the other side cite the letter of Thornton K. Lothrop, of April 15, 1885, 
in reference to a horse railroad, and also the fact that there was a 
ra'^eting at Mr. Morse's house, the testimony about which shows that it 
was attended by both summer and permanent residents, preliminar}'^ to 
the first public meeting. Mr. Lothrop, although esteemed and loved by 
the Beverly Farms people, and a man whom Gov. Kobinsou deemed 
worthy of an appointment upon one of our important state commissions, 
does not carry the people of that village in his breeches pocket, and if 
his letter called forth this uprising he simply applied the match and 
exploded a magazine which liad been accumulating for nearly two 
centuries. It is in evidence that the meetings at Mr. Morse's house 
were called by the natives to see whether or not they should be opposed 
by the summer residents; and Mr. Henry Lee stated at the public meet- 
ing in Marshall's Hall that " he had been coming down there for forty 



29 

years, and took little interest in public affairs, but if the natives wished a 
new town he would do what he could to help them;" and his feeling 
represented at that time the feeling of the great majority of people who 
came there during the summer. Today, however, seeing as they do that 
their property is depreciating in value; they having been publicly 
insulted and made a party to the hostile attacks of old Beverly, and 
seeing that the prosperity of the place is at stake, the summer residents 
join in the movement, but with no such spirit and eagerness as the 
native people. Now, sir, instead of about ifi;400,000, the permanent 
residents of Beverly Farms represent $5,000,000 of the so-called valua- 
tion of the town; men iu every sense of the word citizens of Beverly 
Farms as much as you or I, Mr. Chairman, are of our own towns. 

For the purposes of this case the town of Beverly has invented a dis- 
tinction between citizens of the Farms, not known or recognized else- 
where, not even in Beverly itself, and seeks to divide them into two 
classes, one of which it designates as summer residents, and whom it 
represents as only birds of passage having no permanent interests, asso- 
ciations, or connections with the town which they are seeking to in- 
corporate. The fact is, there are in the proposed town of Beverly 
Farms some fifteen families of citizens who do not pass the entire year 
at the Farms. These fifteen families Beverly calls the summer residents 
of the Farms. They are all landowners and householders: four of them 
own no houses anywhere except in Beverly Farms, and have no other 
home. In one of them the fourth generation has been born since they 
moved to Beverly Farms and is now growing up there. There are two 
of these families where three generations have lived on the same spot at 
the Farms; and four who have been there for two generations; in all, 
thirteen families; while with hardly an exception every one of these 
families has been in Beverly Farms for periods ranging from ten to 
forty-five years. Can any one name a more permanent set of citizens in 
any town ? Of the other non-resident householders who pass four or 
five months of the year in Beverly Farms, but who do not vote there, 
every man owns his own house and place whether it be large or small. 
And did any one ever hear of a man who had bought land, built a house, 
and established himself in a place who took no interest in it ? Can there 
be a stronger proof of a man's having an interest in the town than that 
he has bought land, built a house, and come there to live, if not for the 
whole, for at least a part, of the year? 

To bring about the miscarriage of our petition, Beverly has made 
all this talk about summer residents, as if they were a migratory 
body, a despicable set of persons who had no rights that any one was 
bound to respect. But we should not forget that these same persons, if 



30 

they are ouly summer residents of Beverly Farms, are likewise only 
winter residents in Brookline, Cambridge or Boston; yet we never hear 
that in any of these places the citizens who are there only in winter are 
there merely to be trampled upon. It is a curious fact, however, that 
Beverly doesn't see with the same spectacles on the different sides of the 
line. The very class of persons who are only objects of contempt if thej' 
live in Beverly Parms are worthy of the highest consideration if they 
belong in Beverly; and the town has twice selected as its most com- 
petent and trustworthy representative in the Legislature to combat 
division a purer summer resident than the Farms possesses, one whose 
business is in Boston, who does not own a house or a foot of land in 
Beverly, who never in his life passed six consecutive months there, and 
who paid only a poll tax until the petitioners had twice exposed him as 
a tax-dodger, and the Beverly assessors felt obliged to doom him ; [ap- 
plause] while among the other foremost, most active, and most zealous 
workers against Beverly Farms are numei'ous persons who would be also 
mere summer residents if they were unlucky enough to be on the Farms 
side of the division line. 

These lifteen are by no means millionaires. The largest amount of 
personal property taxed to any one of them in his own right is a little 
more than igJlOOjOOO; the next largest about half as much, and so on till 
we come to the poll tax payers. One or two of them are people who 
have retired from business, but with these exceptions they are all men 
engaged in some business or profession. The real contention of Beverly, 
in substance if not inform, is that not only these fifteen voters, living at 
the Farms only a part of the year, should be excluded from all political 
power, but that their presence should be considered so contaminating as 
to deprive of their fundamental political rights all the other voters of the 
Farms. Is this argument just, is it sound, is it worthy of any con- 
sideration by a Massachusetts Legislature? We submit that it is false, 
unjust, and unworthy. 

Does the fact that a person lives for a part of the year in a city or town 
other than that which he makes his home render him any the less a good 
citizen of the place where his home is; any less public spirited and in- 
terested in that city or town ? Have not those citizens of Boston who 
spend four or five months of every year in the country or on the seashore 
shown themselves always, and especially of late, as having no less public 
spirit and a no less lively and earnest interest for that city and all that 
pertains to its good order, its good government, its good reputation, than 
those who are there all the year round ? And on the other hand, is 
Quincy less proud of the Adamses and the Adamses less identified with 
Quincy, which has been their home for more than a century, because 



31 

they pass a portion of every winter in the city of Boston and own their 
houses there ? Is Wellesley less interested in its public benefactor and 
its public benefactor less interested in Wellesley, in his beautiful gardens, 
in his noble grounds, which are always open to his friends and neighbors 
for their pleasure and delight, because in the cold winter he seeks the 
shelter of the city ? Are the Ameses less identified with Easton and 
Easton with the Ameses, because His Excellency the governor owns 
and occupies for part of the year his palatial mansion on the finest street 
in Boston ? 

Are these distinguished citizens of Massachusetts to be stigmatized as 
tax-dodgers because they make their homes in the towns of their choice, 
and not in Boston ? Yet they are neither more nor less so than those 
voters of Beverly Farms, in precisely similar condition, for whom the 
leading citizens and newspapers of Beverly find no terms of slander too 
strong. The illustrations given above might be indefinitely multiplied; 
but there is no occasion for it. The mutual benefits which the people 
who remain in any town in this Commonwealth, country or seashore, 
during the whole year, receive from and contribute to those of their citi- 
zens who are there only part of the time, ai'e everywhere felt and recog- 
nized except in the town of Beverly. These benefits are not merely 
pecuniary, they are of all sorts and kinds, friendly relations, intellectual 
resources, the recognition on the one side and the other of the great tie 
of humanity, and the restoration it may be, in a little town like Ashfield, 
of an old academy and seat of learning by the exertions of summer resi- 
dents, to the great pleasure and benefit of the town, its people, and the 
whole neighborhood; a work which the stay-at-home citizens of this little 
place could never have accomplished by themselves. The mingling in 
this way, through change of residence, of all sorts and conditions of men, 
is an immense advantage to this State and to every town where it exists; 
and it is hard to find a town in Massachusetts where some one or more 
of the workingmen of the city doesn't make his home for a longer or 
shorter time during the summer. And if it be true, as stated by some of 
the leading men in Beverly, that the summer residents have never taken 
any interest in the town, the reason is to be found in the town's treat- 
ment of them, as shown in the tone and manner in which every man 
from the town who has ever appeared before any Legislative committee 
speaks of them, and what he says about them, and in the Beverly news- 
papers' slurs and sneers at them every week in the year; for it is not to 
be presumed that the people who have gone to Beverly Farms to live and 
have been there for so many years (forty or fifty as citizens), are either 
individually or collectively so totally different from those who have gone 
to other towns in this State where they have been and are respected and 



32 

beloved. We say without hesitation, that if Beverly Farms were polled 
on this question its vote would be unanimous, and directly the reverse of 
Mr. Baker's statement, which is untrue even as regards the old town 
itself. Will not the Law and Order League of Beverly rise up and con- 
tradict him ? The physicians and their hospital, the poor and needy of 
Beverly, have they ever appealed in vain to the summer residents at the 
Farms ? Excluded as these citizens have always been from every public 
office, they have always been willing to lend a hand to every good work 
in which they have been asked or permitted to join. 

The position taken by the men of Beverly that the existence of these 
people at the Farms is a sufficient reason for depriving them and all other 
citizens there of the rights enjoyed by every man in Massachusetts, is 
the strongest possible reflection upon their own intelligence and temper, 
and is directly contradicted by the experience of almost every town in 
this Commonwealth. Yet this is practically the only thing on which the 
old town relies to defeat the strongest case of division ever presented to 
a legislature of Massachusetts. Their leading counsel may consent, as a 
lawyer, to press this unworthy plea, but as a man, as a son of Massachu- 
setts, and as a statesman, he would scorn to listen to or act upon it. 

In reference to non-residents, your attention is called to the fact that 
they own in the proposed town about nine hundred acres. It is intended 
that you should conclude that in consequence thereof the town should 
not be divided. When asked about the number of acres owned by non- 
residents in the old town, Mr. Murney had not computed that. The 
testimony of 1887, however, shows that non-residents own in the old 
town, over seventeen hundred acres ; two of them, Messrs. Peabody and 
Phillips, owning over four hundred acres. Any argument against the 
new town on this account, applies with equal force against the continued 
existence of the present town of Beverly,— in other words, amounts to 
nothing. The governor is wrong when he says that old Beverly owns 
two-thirds of our territory. The testimony of Mr. Murney is that the 
residents of Beverly own only nine hundred acres in Beverly Farms. 
Kot one of the remonstrants from the old town owns a house in Beverly 
Farms, and the whole tax they pay amounts to less than .S2,000. As to 
the startling announcement made with dramatic effect, that the per 
capita valuation would be in the thousands at the Farms, and higher than 
in the old town, it is simply a combination of figures that has no more to 
do with the merits of this case than the fact that after division the debt 
per capita at the Farms would be very large as compared with the old 
town. Keither fact makes any difference to any individual citizen, and 
announcing it loudly, and shouting, " Is this Massachusetts ? " is simply 



33 

done with the hope of catching somebody's attention who never thinks 
for himself. 

They tell you this would be a tax-dodger's paradise. It is a demagog- 
ical appeal to prejudice, and is the veriest clap-trap. But wheu the 
governor, descending to the level of his clients, uses this argument in 
the hope of winning his case, we must answer him. To show that 
Beverly Farms, if set off, would be a tax-dodger's paradise, the town of 
Beverly produced at the very first hearing a non-resident householder, 
who, generalizing loosely, stated that, in his opinion, if Beverly Farms 
became a separate town, persons worth $50,000,000 would at once go 
down there to live. (1886, pp. 154, 155.) He did not undertake to say 
that this fifty millions of dollars was all in personal property, which 
would be at once taxable in the new town ; but he did give the im- 
pression, and he was brought before the legislative committee by the 
town of Beverly that he might give the impression, that if Beverly 
Farms was set off as a separate town, its valuation would be presently 
increased by $50,000,000 from Boston. But on cross-examination 
he made a lamentable spectacle of himself, and has never been 
heard from since. When pressed to name a man who was likely 
to move there, the only man he could name was a gentleman who 
never paid a tax in his life in Boston, but always resided in Salem ; and 
this was his idea of a Boston tax-dodger. Moreover, we obtained indi- 
vidual declarations from all the parties interested, and showed the com- 
mittee that their property was either locked up in business, or held as 
trustees, or their home relations were such that their moving to Beverly 
Farms, or that there could be an influx of personal property to Beverly 
Farms was utterly out of the question. I invite your attention to the 
testimony of that year, 1886, pp. 101, 168. 

For the next year the town was so ill-advised as not to rely upon these 
" glittering and sounding generalities," but to produce that exact and 
methodical man, the chairman of the Assessors of Boston, to state in 
names and figures who he thought would, in case of separation, move to 
Beverly Farms, and the amount of property which would thus be taken 
out of Boston. He gave a list of the persons, which may be found in 
the evidence of that year, and a statement of the amount of taxable 
personal property of which their departure would deprive the city of 
Boston. And so the fifty million dollar bubble was pricked and col- 
lapsed. There were about fifty names upon this list, and the whole 
amount of personal property which he was willing to say they would take 
to be taxed in Beverly Farms, in the case of their removal, was S3,497,- 
000 or about an eighth of Boston's annual increase. Of the persons 
named by him a considerable number were not citizens of Boston, but 



34 



of other places where the tax rate and valuation is such that they 
could not under any circumstances have an inducement to move; and 
they, as vrell as others, were named in the list, as taxpayers in Boston 
upon trust property, the place of whose taxation would not be changed 
by their removal, but would depend upon the residence of the beneficia- 
ries for whom these trusts existed. 

Making these necessary corrections, let us see how the matter stands, 
and what is the largest possible gain to Beverly Farms, the heaviest loss 
to Boston, if Mr. Hill's worst fears as to the result of a separation should 
be realized. 

Mr. Hill produced two carefully prepared and exhaustive lists: one, of 
persons already citizens of Beverly Farms and paying their personal 
taxes there, and whose position would not be altered by division. 
About this list we need not trouble ourselves. The other is of non- 
residents, and is only important as containing the names of all the per- 
sons and the amount of all the property which the lynx-eyed assessor 
and his assistant could discover or guess would disappear from Boston 
and appear for taxation at Beverly Farms in case of division. We need 
not trouble ourselves about the real estate and the persons owning it. 
The lands and houses cannot fly away, but will continue to be taxed in 
Boston wherever their owners live. It is only with the personal prop- 
erty that we have to deal, and when that is taxed to a person as trustee, 
it is the residence of the beneficiary that determines where the tax 
should be paid. 

The whole amount of personal property set out in Mr. Hill's list is 
(as stated) S3,497,000. 

From this there should be these deductions : — 

Henry Adams (owns a house in Beverly Farms but has not 

occupied it for four years), 
Francis Bartlett and others, trustees, 
Benjamin E. Boardmau (lived in a town where the tax rate 

is under .'JG, is now dead), . 
Martin Brimmer, trustee, 
C. U. Cotting and others, trustees (Mr. Cotting is of Brook 

line), . . . . , . . .'^ . 
John L. Gardner (not a citizen of Boston, but of Brooklinc) 
George A. Goddard and others (Mr. Goddard's removal 

would not affect this), 
John R. Lee and others, trustees, 
Henry Lee and others, trustees, 
Charles G. Loring and others, . 
F. Morrison and others, trustees, 
Francis W. Palfrey, trustee, 
H. Farkman and others, trustees, 
Wm. B. Sewall, trustee, .... 
Charles Storrow and others, trustees (Mr. Sto 

zen of Brookline), 



S22,000 
150,000 

1,900 
220,000 

3,400 
200,000 

20,400 
65,800 
11,900 
217,000 
93,000 
16,000 
18,200 
61,600 

9,000 
$1,110,200 
S3,497,000 — $1,110,200 = $2,386,800 



•row is a citi 



35 

Deducting the total amount set off in the list against these names, that 
is ^1,110,200, it leaves, according to the careful estimate of that assessor 
known throughout the Commonwealth as the champion of what he thinks 
Boston's tax rights, the sum of $2,386,800, as the total possible loss to 
Boston in personal property and the entire possible gain to Beverly Farms 
in the event of its incorporation. So that the whole amount of possible 
gain is but little more than the assessors of the town marked up the 
barren lands of Beverly Farms in one year, or about double the loss on 
the valuation of the property at Beverly Fai-ms as stated by the town's 
assessors in the year 1888. 

The calculation, as we think, rests on a basis of pure imagination, but 
it was made at the instigation of the opponents of division by a very 
earnest opponent of division, and is the strongest statement that he dares 
to make of the amount of tax-dodger's property that could be got into 
Beverly Farms within any period that he can foresee. And it comes to 
just this — that in the long future Beverly Farms, if divided, might hope 
to receive an accession of personal property that would somewhat more 
than recoup what it has lost the last two years. If this is all, and it is 
the most that the remonstrants can claim, it is very clear that additions 
to its valuation will not make Beverly Farms a club town or a tax-dodger's 
paradise. 

With a view to winning votes from Suffolk County, they raise the cry 
of injury to Boston. Such solicitude for Boston's welfare as the citizens 
of Beverly pretend to feel excites one's laughter when he considers how 
little they have felt in the past. Boston, rolling up its valuation by mil- 
lions annually, cannot suffer. She increases her valuation $20,000,000 a 
year in these times, and if the worst exodus of personal property ever 
prophesied by the loudest declaimer against division were to take place 
she would never realize the loss any more than the world does the death 
of any one of its inhabitants. 

Finally, a moment's thought will convince you that a man possessed of 
the sordid desire to escape taxation will never select a town for his 
residence or be anxious to have one incorporated where it starts off with 
a debt of $500,000 and not a single article to begin housekeeping with; 
where on the remonstrants' own showing and on the basis of their exag- 
gerated valuations we must have a tax rate of $10 per $1,000, and where 
there are within easy reach towns with established tax rates much lower, 
Manchester, Swampscott, Milton come at once to mind. The more 
thoroughly one investigates this phase of the case, the more effectually 
does the bubble dissipate into thin air, and the more convinced does one 
become that it is only an appeal to the lowest kind of prejudice and 
passion. 



36 

In this connection, let us consider the question of taxation. We hear 
of $10 in the new town and $20 in the old, should our petition prevail. 
We admit that four times five are twenty and that two and two make 
four and we admit that their multiplication is correct, but we do not 
admit their first premise. They start upon a false basis and carry the 
error through the entire sum. They assume that after incorporation we 
shall still keep this outrageous valuation. We shall never do it, and if we 
remain tied to the Beverly dog another year in the face of the evidence 
introduced this year, we cannot see how they can continue to value our 
property up to the present standard. Our valuation must come down to 
$5,000,000 at the outside; then, with the necessary purchases and ex- 
penses of a new town, we have a tax rate from $13 to $15. Let the old 
town follow up Pickman et als., assess them for what we all know they 
are worth, practice a reasonable degree of economy, and you have a tax 
rate about the same as at present. The $35,000 they now get from 
us without an effort tends to extravagance and waste. In the judg- 
ment of men of experience who have considered this subject, with the 
practice of any kind of economy, taxes in old Beverly should not be one 
cent higher than in 1885, before the Farms was plundered and their taxes 
reduced, while by a similar style of valuation their taxes can be kept at 
the present rate. On the other hand, assuming a burden of half a 
million, as proposed, $300,000 more than its proportion, for which it has 
received nothing and will receive nothing but its freedom, starting naked, 
as it were, and with a normal valuation of about $4,000,000, the probabil- 
ities are as one hundred to one that taxes in Beverly Farms will be 
higher than at present until the debt is paid. 

But, gentlemen, as I said in my opening argument, we have not come 
here to dodge taxes or to escape our burden. Under the bills heretofore 
reported we have taken one-half of the debt as against two-fifths as would 
naturally fall to us under the usual form of such bills. If, however, you 
believe that we are not doing the fair thing by old Beverly in taking half 
of the large debt she has contracted for her own purposes, and if you say 
we should assume any more of the debt, we stand ready to submit to your 
judgment and do what you shall say is fair and equitable. To dodge 
taxes is no object of ours. [Applause.] 

Old Beverly is neither going to decay nor will she be in the pitiable 
condition she claims, should division take place. The town today stands 
among the towns of the Commonwealth, second in wealth, fifth in number 
of polls, and ninth in population. Should Beverly Farms be incorporated, 
Beverly will still be left one of the largest, most wealthy, populous and 
thriving towns in the Commonwealth, with a population of 8,041 (on the 
basis of the census of 1885 ; much larger now, though how much I cannot 



37 

tell), with 2,497 polls and 1,865 voters, and a valuation of $7,000,000. 
She would then rank fifth in wealth, sixteenth in polls, and seventeenth 
in population among the towns of the Commonwealth, and have a 
territory of 5,891 acres. Of the S1,000,000 of public property under the 
bills heretofore adopted by the committees, she would have .f 800,000; 
everything, in fact, but the waterpipes, schoolhouse, engine and engine- 
house at the Farms, — in short, a complete equipment, together with all 
the factories and places of business of any magnitude; the Farms taking 
50 per cent, of the debt would leave the old town in the best financial 
condition she has been in since 1870, when, had the Farms been set off, 
only 14 per cent, of the debt would have been taken. From a valuation 
of S817,425 in 1870, Beverly Farms increased to $4,000,000 in 1885, as we 
claim, a normal and natural valuation. She paid in 1885, 30 per cent, of 
the taxes, or $66,000 out of a total of $173,000 raised; while today she 
pays $89,650 out of a total of $194,700 raised; and yet the Farms have 
nothing but water-pipes fourteen years old, a schoolhouse, an engine and 
enginehouse, from $25,000 to $30,000 only being expended in their 
district per annum, while old Beverly can point with pride to her princely 
possessions. You have seen the territory and know that I do not 
misrepresent the facts when I say she, with the properly spread out 
where any one can see, is amply able to take care of herself and easily 
cope with her sister towns; and as to what is concealed, no one knoweth. 
Instead of going backward, she is going forward, and no Beverlyite will say 
to the contrary when any other question than division is under discussion. 
Two hundred thousand dollars' worth of new buildings are being erected 
each year in the old part of the town. Scarcely a paper is issued which 
does not contain some report of new growth or evidence of business 
enterprise. 

I am going to take the liberty of reading two or three sketches of this 
kind. Here is one from the Beverly Citizen of Oct. 20, 1888: 

"THOSE PROSPECTIVE SHOE FACTORIES. 

" The three shoe factories to be erected by a member of the Board of 
Trade, which have already been referred to in these columns, and for 
which the Board has been endeavoring to secure tenants, have been en- 
gaged by several shoe manufacturing firms, and it is expected that work 
will be commenced on them at once. Negotiations are pending with 
another firm, so that it is very probable that a fourth factory will be 
erected which, with the power for all supplied from one source, will make 
the rent considerably cheaper than if only three buildings were put up. 
Mr. T. D. Lovett, who is the man to build the factories, has started from 
the West for Beverly, and is expected to reach here Monday. On his 
arrival the matter will assume a definite shape." 



38 

Again from the Beverly Times of Feb. 6, 1889: 

"KYALL'S SIDE. 

"A friend of ours kindly invited us to take a ride behind a good trotter 
yesterday morning, and among the different places in town that we visited 
was that part of the town known as Ryall's Side. We were surprised at 
the rapid growth of this section of our town. Pretty little cottages and 
handsome dwellings are on either side of the street, and their attractive 
appearance speaks of the thrift of their owners." 

Then the last Beverly Times has an article of four or live columns , headed 
" A Day Among the Painters," in which it devotes all this space to the 
painting business, and says: 

" A stranger looking at Beverly from the outside naturally says her 
whole business is conlined to her shoe factories, and there you will Und 
her mechanics. This is true to a certain extent, but there are many 
other branches of industry which help make up the whole, and makes 
Beverly the live, progressive town that it is. A call on some of our 
painters, carpenters and masons furnish a little idea of the present 
prosperity of the town." 

The Beverly Times of December 19 last has an article headed: 
"IT IS A GOODLY TOWN. 

"many reasons why BEVERLY IS THE PROPER PLACE TO LIVE. 

"What other Town Has as Many Advantages?" 
There are a column of them. I will read a few. 

" It has a railroad and water accommodations for any line of business. 

" It is a leading manufacturing town in Essex County. 

" It has a .'?G0,000 Odd Fellows' Hall. 

" It has a hotel that is superior to many in our larger cities. 

" It has two weekly papers that are liberally patronized. 

" It is on the main line of the Boston & Maine Railroad. 

" It has a National and Savings Bank with records that stand high in 
banking circles. 

" It has electric lights. 

" It has a host of solid business men. 

" It has the manufactures and manufacturers. 

" It has a flourishing Board of Trade. 

" It is just the place for capitalists to invest their money, and just the 
place for young blood to succeed in business." 

Now, then, we are told that Essex County is astir in this matter, and 
fears smiliar petitions will come from Magnolia, Marblehead, and Swamp- 
scott. It is only another bugbear and thin cloud blown across the hori- 
zon by Beverly. I say, gentlemen, let every tub stand on its own bot- 
tom, and if another body of petitioners come before the Legislature, let 



39 

their case stand or fall on its own merits. If the real sentiment of Es- 
sex County could be got at, a big howl would go up : " For God's sake, 
divide the town and let us hear no more about the question; IJeverly is 
running all our county politics, and we are sick of it." Representatives 
and Senators have repeatedly said they sympathize with us and would 
gladly vote for the bill but the political influence of Beverly is such that 
they dare not. And I was pleased when the governor named over five 
towns in Essex County this morning, — Amesbury, Saugus and three 
other places, — where he said you would find the sentiment of Essex 
County in regard to division. Out of those five towns, three have sent 
representatives to this Legislature who have voted in favor of the 
division of Beverly and the incorporation of Beverly Farms. [Applause.] 

Now then, I don't know whether the governor alluded to it this year 
or not, but last year he quoted a resolution passed by an indignation 
meeting in Danvers, against the disruption of the town of Beverly. I 
don't believe that he knew last year that these meetings were arranged 
for, called, and gotten up by the people from old Beverly, and that they 
went over in barges to carry them on. 

Mr. Robinson. I referred to a town meeting, not to an indignation 
meeting. 

Mr. Williams. Yes, but practically an indignation meeting tacked 
on to the tail end of a town meeting, where the Beverly people came in 
and took possession. 

If Essex county would come to its senses, it would see that every new 
town benefits the whole county. But, instead of welcoming capital 
within their limits they repel it, and when it goes to other places on the 
coast of New Hampshire and Maine, like Bar Harbor, both the county 
and the state lose so much taxable property. 

Now, as to this majority vote;of a town as necessary to secure division. 
I don't know whether I ought to say a word about it or not. If that 
principle is a wise one, and if it is to be recognized as correct, we might 
just as well throw up the sponge, as you can see ; because not one town 
in forty would be divided if the question were to be determined by a 
majority vote. The governor cited one instance that I happened to 
know about, because I was counsel in the case — that of Attleborough. 
That case was entirely different from this. The people on both sides of 
the line were divided in their opinion on the question of division; there 
were people in North Attleborough and people in East Attleborough 
who favored it, and there were people in both those sections who 
opposed it. The question went to vote in the town, and the 
petitioners carried it, much to the surprise of the remonstrants 
The circumstances were entirely different from anything we have 
now. Now, in conclusion, gentlemen, — and you are glad, of course. 



40 

— three committees of the legislature, made up of fair-minded men, 
after full investigation, have said by decisive majorities that we were 
entitled to have our petition granted. The House and Senate, by large 
majorities, have likewise decreed, and we await with anxiety your de- 
cision. 

The whole question seems to resolve itself into this shape: Shall 
a body of petitioners who make out a case for the incorporation 
of a town, as many disinterested people believe the strongest case ever 
presented to a Massachusetts legislature, be denied their right simpl}^ and 
solely because there dwell in their midst a few rich men? Or, in other 
words, has a rich man the same rights as a poor man in Massachusetts, 
or shall he be accorded less and different privileges and rights? I hope 
and believe not. We are still in Massachusetts, and all good citizens, 
the rich and the poor, are to stand on the same plane. [Applause.] 



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